From the Land of Cowboys to You; or, The Modern Buckaroo’s Guide to the World
A Western definition:
Dude (dood) n.
Usually an Easterner, but it can be used to call anyone obviously unready for the West–such as if a person is wearing street shoes, too-fancy clothes, or unable to ride a horse or track game or make coffee in a tin can. A dude is usually mocked mercilessly (see The Virginian, [...]
The cover of Denis Johnson’s new novel Nobody Move screams KITSCHPULPNOIR with red and yellow letters and bullet holes spangling the jacket.
Famously serialized in Playboy, the story has plenty to like, or plenty to dislike, depending on how cooked you like your femme fatales, gun-toting heavies, and convoluted plots. I take mine hard as nails, [...]
Yesterday was Owen Wister’s birthday, the man who almost single-handedly created the Cowboy mythos. He’s both a masterful wordsmith and a cautionary example against using the Cowboy indiscriminately.
Who the hell is Owen Wister? One of my favorite places on the Wild Western Web for all things Americana, The Library of Congress’s American Memory site [...]